Temporal Mechanics 101: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, and HOW don't count
by GWIect
Summary: How DID that Cottingley photo suddenly appear on the monitor next to Gwen at the end of Small Worlds? (Prequel to the Temporal Mechanics Universe)


Ianto watched the conference room from the opposite walkway, as Gwen used her PDA to zoom in on the Cottingley photo. She soon saw what his eidetic memory had allowed him to notice the moment he found the NHS and schooling records for the newly identified chosen one after the attack on the other children.

Jasmine Pierce's face. In a photograph taken nearly a hundred years before. One of the many things Ianto had learned during his years with Torchwood was that dealing with creatures who moved through time forced you to play by their rules, rather than your own. There had never been any other choice but to let the girl go, because she'd already gone. This was Gwen's first experience with temporal phenomena, so she couldn't really be expected to figure it out on her own. It would eventually be Jack's job to impart that knowledge, but not tonight. Not until she'd had time for her curiosity to outweigh her anger, and come looking for those answers.

As she stalked to her desk, grabbed her coat and left the Hub with the blaring of alarms to mark her passing, he pressed a button on his own PDA, removing the picture from the screen he'd sent it to, then sent copies to the PDA's of both Owen and Tosh. He knew that they would ignore them for a while in their anger, but both had learned enough about time-displacement in their years with Torchwood that when they eventually checked their email, they'd begin to understand.

Ianto walked resolutely down the stairs and across the Hub floor, the alarms blaring again as Owen and Tosh followed shortly after Gwen. No one had said a word to him since returning from the Pierce home, and certainly no one had spoken to Jack. He found himself glad for his part as he made his way up the stairs to Jack's office, because he wasn't sure he would have been able to control his reaction to their blatant hypocrisy if they had tried to corner him about what happened.

He paused in the doorway, taking in the scene. Jack was sat at his desk, slumped over with his head in his hands. The pain, guilt, and uncertainty rolled off him in waves so strong that Ianto's knees nearly buckled as he drew closer.

"Go home, Ianto." Jack muttered, not bothering to lift his head, as Ianto came around the desk to perch on the edge.

"Something I'd like you to see, sir." Ianto said, ignoring the order. Jack still hadn't lifted his head, when he'd finished transferring the picture from his PDA onto the desktop screen, so Ianto gently pulled Jack's hands from his face, and nudged him to look at the screen.

"Just _look_, sir..." He said, softly. "Sometimes a closer look makes all the difference..."

When Jack finally opened his eyes to look at the picture, Ianto performed the same function on his PDA as Gwen had on hers, zooming in on the face of the smiling faerie in the foreground of the famous photograph until it was clear enough to identify. He knew Jack had made the connection when he gasped and sat up straighter in his chair.

"Have the others seen this?" Jack turned to ask, shock on his features.

"Gwen has." Ianto said, shrugging lightly. "I imagine she may still need a lecture on temporal mechanics before it sinks in properly, but when the others check their mail and find it I think they'll understand. You couldn't have done anything else, sir. There was never a choice to make. It was already done before we ever found out about her."

"All times are now..." Jack murmured, turning back to stare at the photograph again.

"Temporal mechanics 101." One side of Ianto's mouth rose slightly in a half-smile, as he straightened from his position against the desk. He rested a hand on Jack's shoulder squeezing for a moment before letting go, much as Jack had the day before. "I was listening on the comms the entire time. I heard everything, sir. This is not on your shoulders. You don't have to feel guilty for the choice she made. No matter how young her chronological age may have been, she knew what they were, and had done for some time. She was lost before there were any signs for us to notice."

"When did you find this?" Jack asked him.

"I took the liberty of going through her records to find what she looked like, as you were leaving the school. Just in case she wasn't at her home when you arrived, and a search was required. I figured it out just as you began chasing her into the woods, and I didn't think the distraction would have helped at that point." Ianto told him honestly. "If I had known sooner, I'd have said something. Though I doubt any of you would have listened to me."

"Perhaps..." Jack admitted.

"No perhaps." Ianto told him. "I know that I still have a lot to make up for, before the rest of you will feel comfortable trusting my opinions. I would have tried, anyway. I'll continue trying for as long as it takes, but I won't let their hypocrisy about this stand. There was nothing else you could have done, and they need to understand that."

"Hypocrisy?" Jack looked confused. "What hypocrisy?"

Ianto looked down at him somberly for a moment, then turned to walk away. At the door to the office, he paused to answer without turning back, "The last time you had to make that sort of decision, they stood shoulder to shoulder with you and shot bullets into what little was left of the woman I loved as I watched. If they can do _that_, yet still ask me to make them coffee every day... Lets just say I think their reaction to today's events is more than just a_ little_ bit hypocritical." With that, he moved swiftly through the door and down the stairs.

"Ianto!" Jack called, and when he turned back to face the office from the cog door, alarms blaring as it opened, he saw Jack standing in the doorway of his office.

"Yes, sir?" He asked.

"Thank you, Ianto." Jack told him, and Ianto felt every ounce of the gratitude in his voice. It felt a little bit like forgiveness.

"You're welcome, Jack." He replied with a slight nod, and made his way out.

* * *

_Author's Note - I started re-watching series 1 of Torchwood, and when I got to Small Worlds I realized that the one thing I have somehow never seen in a Torchwood fic, is an explanation for how the Cottingley photo suddenly appeared on the monitor for Gwen to see at the end of that episode. She was cleaning up their research materials, but the screen was blank one moment, and the picture appeared there the next with no explanation given. _  
_I also always wondered why in a show that has such a relationship with Doctor Who, and has any number of it's own instances of temporal phenomena to draw from, no one ever took into account that for her face to be in that picture to allow Gwen to realize at the end that they were in fact real pictures, it would have to mean that there was never any other choice but to let her go. Even if they had convinced her not to go without the faeries destroying the world, the very act of preventing her from joining them would have provoked a paradox that would have destroyed it anyway._

_I have read a LOT of Torchwood fanfic, but so far I must have missed either of those observations being made anywhere. So, this is my response to that, and also functions as a prequel to another story I'm writing. Since my story already had a heavy dose of Temporal Mechanics and Paradox Theory planned, I thought this would be a good way to get things started._


End file.
